Biomaterials & Healthcare

Key biomaterials activities in the Department of Materials include the development of new scaffolds for regenerative medicine, biomaterials characterisation, stem cell therapy, cell-materials interface engineering, and self-assembled biomimetic copolymers and nanomaterials for biosensing applications.

A large proportion of our work focuses on materials that can stimulate beneficial biological responses from the body, such as the stimulation of tissue repair. Tissue engineering has the potential to achieve this by combining materials design and engineering with cell therapy.

We work closely with centres at Imperial, including the Centre for Injury Studies and MSK Lab. We also collaborate extensively with external centres including the London Centre for Nanotechnology, UK Regenerative Centre Platform (UKRMP), The Francis Crick Institute and the i-sense research centre.

Our research explores:

• Early and accurate diagnostics through biosensors.
• Biomaterials for regenerative medicine 
• Treatment of diseases using therapeutic nanoparticles (eg: osteoporosis, cancer and tuberculous meningitis) 
• Impacts of pollution in different urban environments
• Bioglass & bioactive scaffolds for tissue engineering through additive manufacturing 
• Theory and modelling of Soft Matter systems